Letters: Hemo Gorge sculpture budget blowout no surprise

An artist's impression of the sculpture planned for the Hemo Gorge roundabout. Image / supplied

So it's taken an LGOIMA request to let the cat out of the bag. And I'm quite sure that the council would have preferred the cat, the nearly 50 per cent over budget cost of the Hemo Gorge roundabout sculpture (News, March 22), to remain tightly inside the bag, never to escape.

How can something budgeted to cost $500,000 burgeon to just under $750,000?

One of the answers may lie in the original concept. When it was belatedly discovered that it couldn't be constructed in NZ, alarm bells should have rung.

Time for both the council and the designers to reconsider the project. But no, a "statement" and legacy were more important and admitting you may have got it wrong just wasn't on the radar. Answer: Pay more to have it built offshore. Oops, that won't work either, so pay yet more to have it constructed in a different medium back in NZ.

All this time being assured that the cost wouldn't exceed the budgeted $500,000.

How could a council, in all honesty, and as late as November 2018, still report that the project was within the $500,000 budget? Council wasn't fooling anyone, except possibly itself.

Why am I not surprised by this latest cost blowout? Because it's what I, and so many other people, have unfortunately come to expect from our council. The decision-makers should take responsibility for this latest financial failure.

Those councillors with prudent financial nous are ignored.

Paddi Hodgkiss
Lynmore

Goodbye, Facebook

Our sheer disgust and abhorrence of the events in Christchurch on 15th March and the subsequent lack of responsibility being displayed by Facebook and other media "platforms" have led my husband and I to delete our Facebook accounts as our only means of protest.

Being older persons precluded us from marching and sitting on the ground at vigils.

We know that in the scheme of things this is extremely small potatoes to a company worth billions but who knows?

"Mighty oaks from small acorns grow"

Rosemary MacKenzie
Rotorua

Litter a step too far

As an ancient resident of Lynmore who built a home with sheep roaming on one boundary and the tranquillity of the forest on the other side of the road, I realised that times would change.

I now accept the traffic chaos at the bottom of Tarawera Rd, the problems of turning into Long Mile, I even accept the booming of a loudspeaker giving results of a Crankworx biker hurtling down the forest edge.

What I find hard to accept is the litter left behind from the parked cars that lined the length of the forest edge of Tarawera Rd, and the food and drink cartons and takeaway rubbish that ended up in my drive.

I acknowledge the council's effort for a smart clean up.

Alf Hoyle
Tarawera

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